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One year ago today I went under the knife needle to have superglue injected into my brain to cut off the growth of a cluster of veins that had gotten out of control and ultimately could have killed me had it gone untreated.

Wow, that is a crazy sentence to re-read. It still feels pretty surreal. I’ve described the experience immediately following as how you might feel after a crazy frat party: I had a massive hangover (the migraines) and I had various personal body parts shaved (where they inserted the needles). At least no one drew a moustache on my face in sharpie, but that might have proven difficult considering.

Life has been pretty normal since all of that. I still get some migraines especially with pressure changes. They are under control for the most part, however. None of this would have been possible without the wonderful doctors and staff at KU Medical Center. What they are doing there truly seems like science fiction. The fact that I had brain surgery and it seemed no worse than a crazy frat party is pretty mind-blowing. Obviously, the migraines are worse than a simple hangover, but still.

My friend, the talented tattoo artist Chris Stubbs has designed this amazing sleeve for me partially in honor of my experience with the surgery:

It’s going on my left arm and connecting up to the other tattoo on my shoulder, the Cephaskelamech. Work began on it a few weeks ago and I’ve got another appointment set up in mid April! I can’t wait to see this thing finished!

I got my first tattoo on my first wedding anniversary with Maura. I’ve been trying to decide what to do for my second the moment I walked out the door of Exile Tattoo. I’ve toyed with various ideas – cephalopods, skulls/bones, mechanical parts, etc. and couldn’t really decide on anything. I also knew I wanted to have one of the many talented artists I know create it, but everything was up in the air until the Two Headed Beast approached me about coding their website.

The Two Headed Beast is Chris and Mirna Stubbs, two very talented artists, a designer (Chris), and an illustrator (Mirna). I told them I would code their site in trade for a tattoo design. Chris had designed some tattoos for himself and I have to admit that I was a little jealous. I explained my initial to Chris and after some design and critique back and forth, this is my next tattoo:

Yesterday we met with Chet at Mercy Seat and I have a tentative date set to start inking! He seems excited to work on Chris’ designs, yesterday he said “It’s not worth doing if it’s not a challenge”. It should take between six to eight hours in at least two sessions to complete.

In an email today, Chris sent me some fundraising ideas to fund our tattoos. They cracked me up and I had to add a few of my own! He’s getting one soon as well, after having designed mine, he went to work on an idea he’s been mulling around for a while for himself – Chris’ Tattoo. They’re both pretty big and very detailed, they’re not going to be cheap.

It’s the beginning of a new year; a chance to start fresh. All of the bad habits from last year can stay in the past. Whatever. There’s actually only been one year in my entire life that I actually followed through with all of my resolutions. My friend and I set some very specific, achievable goals and held each other accountable for them. At first I wasn’t even going to bother with any, I usually don’t, but as I thought about what I would want to achieve this year, I managed to come up with a few that I could deal with. So here they are, in no particulat order:

Develop a thicker skin – I resolve not to let people get to me and make my life miserable, even (especially) the stupid people.

100 pushups – My wife and I have tried this program a couple of times, but some thing kills our momentum and we stop. Not this time, this time I resolve to trudge through the arms feeling like jelly phase and eventually reach 100.

Second tattoo – I already have the designs of the next two chosen, I just have to get someone to draw the third one. I resolve to finally get my second tattoo.

That’s it for now. They’re nothing big, but they are very specific and definitely achievable.